Very much like the 911 vids; it's all about the driver. He's got skills. The only way to wring this thing out into a prolonged drift would be a massive flick or a wet road.

If you really need to believe that in order for your 'car world' and all those years of listening to Jeremy Clarkson's bs make some sense to you then go ahead. Fine by me.

But you have to ask yourself one simple question... why do the the most popular and successful 911s (available to the general public) were, are and always will be the all-wheel drive variants since the introduction of the 959 through the 964, 993 and all the models that followed?!

Let me help you to find the answer... BECAUSE THEY ARE SAFER TO DRIVE FAST!

Why?! Here's why...

Unbalanced car - engine behind the rear axle - 911:

Balanced car - 53:47 front-to-rear weight distribution - Toyobaru:

You you can't deny physics... but you can wave your hand to the crowd while you are driving a Toyobaru sideways - that's how balanced it is!

You you can't deny physics... but you can wave your hand to the crowd while you are driving a Toyobaru sideways - that's how balanced it is!

You realize that a 50/50 weight balance is not ideal, right? A rearward bias is preferential, but most front engine cars can't achieve that, so just getting half of the weight on the back is considered beneficial. More weight in the back helps with traction, braking and can allow narrower front tires which can help greatly with drag coefficient and also allows smaller and lighter suspension components.

Ideally this current run of the BRZ/FRS/86 would have had a 45/55 or similar weight balance, allowing the future blown versions to not tip towards being nose heavy, which they likely will. It would also create a little more appeal to the "base" car in that it would retain slightly better handling and braking results than the blown cars.

You realize that a 50/50 weight balance is not ideal, right? A rearward bias is preferential, but most front engine cars can't achieve that, so just getting half of the weight on the back is considered beneficial. More weight in the back helps with traction, braking and can allow narrower front tires which can help greatly with drag coefficient and also allows smaller and lighter suspension components.

You can look at the Cayman as having the perfect weight distribution for a racing car (and a low center of gravity due to the boxer engine).

The BIG advantage of having the engine in the middle of the car (between both front and rear axles) is initial turn-in. It's like the car would be perfectly able to rotate around an imaginary vertical axis passing through its center of gravity between the driver and passenger seats. However, due to the absence of the weight of the engine on the front wheels, once you start applying the throttle and the weight shifts to the rear, provided you don't have enough power to break the rear wheels traction, you will start to understeer. Thus, you loose some of the capacity to use the throttle to corner despite the fact that you are actually carrying more speed into the corner in virtue of the better turn-in.

So, another concept has to be accounted for - car's dynamic weight distribution. With Toyobaru's less than ideal weight distribution at 53/47 front to rear, the weight distribution shifts rearward under acceleration and becomes dead even at near-perfect 50/50 balance despite of the initial understeer due to a worse turn-in ability. This means you can get back on the throttle earlier allowing the car to accelerate with neutral weight distribution. The car's balance prowess lays on the right amount of rotation you get from the transition between braking and getting back on the gas. And, if things are done right you can essentially use the throttle to corner and the steering wheel to initially turn-in and opposite lock. That's the reason why precise, fast throttle response is so important and turbo-lag so detrimental.

And thankfully no stupid awd. This car really is shaping up to be quite interesting. Hopefully TRD/STI gets behind track support as effectively as Mazda has with the Spec Miata and things like a rear seat delete and rollbar become available quickly.

I drive a Z3 M Coupe, the very definition of hoonage. I've also tracked a few Exiges/Elises that didn't have an over abundance of power or a capability to rotate under off-peak power very well, but they really didn't exhibit power-on understeer and were certainly capable of getting into the power earlier than any front engine car I've driven.

The one cautionary thing I have to say about the Lotii is that they had awful throttle response from a Toyota n/a engine, so hopefully the Toyota part of this engine is offset by the Subaru parts. I've tracked STi's too that had better throttle response than many modern drive by wire n/a engines.

I drive a Z3 M Coupe, the very definition of hoonage. I've also tracked a few Exiges/Elises that didn't have an over abundance of power or a capability to rotate under off-peak power very well, but they really didn't exhibit power-on understeer and were certainly capable of getting into the power earlier than any front engine car I've driven..

Did the Exiges/Elises oversteer then?! Have you ever driven an equally lightweight front engine (rwd) car to really compare?!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red Bread

The one cautionary thing I have to say about the Lotii is that they had awful throttle response from a Toyota n/a engine, so hopefully the Toyota part of this engine is offset by the Subaru parts. I've tracked STi's too that had better throttle response than many modern drive by wire n/a engines.

There's nothing like the throttle response from a good NA engine... either driven by wire or otherwise.